


Hunger and Ache

by lovetincture



Series: Damnatio Memoriae [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Biting, Bloodplay, Established Relationship, Fasting, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Semi-Public Sex, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 06:32:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18632740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovetincture/pseuds/lovetincture
Summary: Sherlock is bored, and John wants to help. Sherlock’s idea of a good time is unconventional, like most things about Sherlock— what better way to pass the time than having sex and starving yourself with your lover, just to see what happens?After all, there’s more than one kind of hunger. They can starve the one and feed the other together.(Note: This fic is set sometime afterDamnatio Memoriaein the same universe, but you can read it as a standalone if you prefer.)





	Hunger and Ache

**Author's Note:**

> Content note: While this fic doesn’t contain explicit mention of eating disorders beyond slight nods to my headcanon about Sherlock, it does contain descriptions of hunger and people denying themselves food. Tread lightly if you’re sensitive to such things. <3

"John, I'm bored."

Sherlock had been playing his violin not long before, but it seemed the act had run low on appeal. Now he was swishing his bow, making it whistle as it cut through the air with languid snaps of his wrist.

John, meanwhile, was directly in the middle of something. He'd taken up reading again. Originally, it was an effort to brush up on his writing skills, but then he'd discovered John Grisham and gotten thoroughly absorbed in his entire catalog of mysteries. This was getting _good._ They were just about to reveal the killer. "Watch telly or something," John suggested distractedly. He took another sip of tea and turned the page.

Sherlock got up from his sulking nest on the couch and stalked over to John, interrupting the next sentence by putting his big hand directly over the page. _"Bored,"_ he reiterated. "I said I'm bored, not that I want to lose functioning brain cells and several hours of my life."

John sighed and pulled the book out from beneath Sherlock's splayed fingers. He lifted it up and resettled its spine over the top of Sherlock's hand. "Well, I'm busy. Can't you go find something else to entertain you?"

He'd just found where he'd left off in the text when Sherlock pressed his hand down, down into John's lap. He was inching long, clever fingers up John's thigh, stopping to press just _there_ while John resolutely ignored him. Sherlock started up a hard rhythm, using the heel of his palm to rub John through his trousers. "I found something," Sherlock rumbled in his ear.

He kept right on ignoring him, up until the point when Sherlock sank gracefully to his knees, flicking the button of his trousers open with a deft twist of his fingers. John groaned as he felt Sherlock's hands dive into his pants, drawing him out, and he tossed the book across the room.

"Wasn't that good anyway," he breathed, tangling both hands in Sherlock's hair as the detective swallowed him down.

He held on for the ride as Sherlock's talented mouth worked its magic. He tugged on Sherlock's hair, earning a throaty hum as Sherlock bobbed up and down on his cock.

Sherlock must have felt the moment John was about to come, must have felt it in the tension in this thighs or the tightening grip on his curls, heard it in the changed cadence of John's breath. He must have, because just before the point of no return, Sherlock pulled off with a wet _pop._

John groaned and let his head fall back to thud against the backrest of his chair. "Sherlock."

He sat back on his heels, grinning at John like the cat who ate the canary. "I suppose I should leave you alone. You're _busy,_ after all."

John whipped his head up to narrow his eyes at the man before him. "Don't you dare."

Sherlock's grin spread wider as he got to his feet, dancing away from John's grasping hands. "Make me."

He did.

* * *

After, when they were lying sated and sticky on the bedroom floor—hadn't quite made it to the bed—Sherlock fidgeted where he lay in John's arms.

"Nngh?" John asked. He couldn't be arsed to form a cogent thought. It felt like Sherlock had just sucked his soul out through his prick.

Sherlock twisted so he was face to face with John, propped up on an elbow so he could look down to where John lay on his back. "I'm bored," he said.

John looked at Sherlock, really _looked,_ now that Sherlock had (quite effectively) commanded his full attention. He could see the tension on his face, mouth pinched and brow furrowed. He reached out a hand and gently stroked the twin lines of Sherlock's eyebrows with a finger, smoothing them out in a small soothing motion. When he moved his hand again, Sherlock's brows snapped back together, furrowed and forlorn.

"Oh, love," John said, pulling Sherlock to him. He turned them so Sherlock was laying on his back, then settled his weight atop the detective's larger frame. Sometimes Sherlock found the press of a heavy weight comforting when his mind was tormenting him. They'd discovered that John's body weight did quite nicely in times like these. "I'm sorry I didn't notice," he murmured into Sherlock's chest.

His friend's heart was beating so fast. The description Sherlock had given him once, that of a rocket trapped on a launchpad, tearing itself apart for lack of purpose, seemed apt.

Sherlock harrumphed, but his nose had pressed itself to John's neck as soon as he'd settled, like some sort of John-seeking missile, so that the displeased noise came out as nothing more than a soft snuffle of air.

They hadn't had a case in over a week, and it was taking its toll. While Sherlock might have been happy to pore over off-shore bank account numbers and safe house lists while Moriarty was still alive and baying for their blood, he had no such project now—certainly nothing larger than life, the way that had been. Inspiration struck. "Tell me what I did today."

John could practically feel Sherlock rolling his eyes against the skin of his throat. "What's the point in that?"

John nudged him a little. "Impress me."

Sherlock drew in a deep breath that made John rise and fall atop his chest. When he spoke, it was slower than when he rattled off deductions for the Met at a mile a minute. His voice was a low rumble John could feel bleeding into his own ribcage where it was pressed to Sherlock's.

"You got up early this morning to go for a walk because you were reading the _European Journal of General Practice_ last night, and its feature is an article about the rise of heart attacks as a leading cause of death among men in Europe—although really, in our line of work, it's highly unlikely that cardiac arrest is what will eventually kill you. You walked to the cafe near the Lancaster Medical Center—told yourself you just really like their coffee, but you've been missing the clinic since you quit; probably you wanted to do something maudlin like look at it from the outside. You walked through Hyde Park on your way home, picked up milk and bread at the shop, then settled in to read that awful book." There was a beat. "You don't know it yet, but you won't like the ending."

He managed to make every word sound sensual, so that the catalogue of John's rather mundane day seemed elevated by proximity to Sherlock's brilliance.

"Amazing," John said, pressing a kiss into the ridge of Sherlock's cheekbone. And it was. Even in the vice of deadly boredom, his love was a marvel.

Sherlock smiled, quick and true and genuine. His heart had slowed and he seemed more grounded by the time John rolled off to lay beside him once more.

"Now what are we going to do with you?" John asked.

"Shag me until someone gets murdered?" Sherlock said hopefully, and the suggestion drew a snort out of John.

And yet.

He sat up and eyed Sherlock, the whole long, smooth, pale expanse of him. John licked his lips, a gleam in his eye at the challenge. "Could do."

They made it to the bed this time.

After, John was desperately hungry. His stomach gurgled, the growl so loud that it made him chuckle. He made to get off the bed. "Christ, I could eat a horse. Back in a tick."

"'Til someone was murdered, you promised," Sherlock wheedled.

"Okay, okay, 'til someone is murdered, but I'm only human, love. I do have other needs."

Sherlock pouted. "Tedious."

John rolled his eyes and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Just as he was about to push himself up, a vice-like grip settled around his wrist. He gave a little tug, but Sherlock wouldn't budge. "C'mon, Sherlock, I'm starving."

Sherlock scrambled upright so quickly he almost kneed himself in the face in the process. He looked at John with wonder, like he was something rare and precious. Like a locked room murder. Like a puzzle with bombs. "What did you say?"

John raised an eyebrow as if to say, _you nutter._ "I said I'm starving. Now I'm just going to make some toast, and I'll be right back. You want something?"

Sherlock sucked in a breath, mouth making a perfect round 'o.' _"John,"_ he breathed reverently. "Oh, you wondrous thing. _That's it."_

John rubbed the back of his neck. "Okay, now you've lost me. What's it?"

"Starvation!" Sherlock exclaimed, scooting himself closer to John so they were nose to nose. "Starvation is a fascinating biological process. It's also uniquely painful as the stomach atrophies and fat and muscle are cannibalized."

John wondered if Sherlock's knowledge of starvation was down to work or pleasure. If it was yet another thing he'd stuffed in his brain in service of The Work, or if it had a more personal origin. The question was on the tip of his tongue, which he bit at the last minute. He chose another instead. "That's great, Sherlock. Does that mean I can go grab a bite now?"

He tugged his wrist gently where Sherlock was still holding it. Sherlock let go, only to take both of John's hands in his.

"John, let's starve together."

John blinked. Opened his mouth. Blinked again. "What?"

It was a testament to what a good mood this idea had put Sherlock in, he didn't even bat an eye at John's dumbfounded question. "Let's starve ourselves, together," he repeated patiently.

Okay. Considering he'd let Sherlock carve him up on more than one occasion, this wasn't the craziest idea he'd had. Not by a longshot. Still.

He hesitated. He and Sherlock had never talked about Sherlock's relationship with food, but he'd always had his concerns when it came to his eating habits. But Sherlock had always allowed him to press jellied toast or biscuits or a banana on him when he'd gone too long without a proper meal and John started to worry, and so he had never pried.

It seemed like the time to broach the topic now, though, if they were seriously considering this. "Is that a good idea? I mean, you don't eat at the best of times. Is a premeditated hunger strike really the best plan?"

Sherlock waved him off. "People fast for religious or health reasons all the time. Plus, you're a doctor."

"And yet, I'm still beholden to the laws of thermodynamics," John quipped. "Besides, how exactly is starving ourselves going to cure your boredom? It's not, strictly speaking, an activity. If anything, it's a lack of activity. We'll just be doing exactly what we're doing now, but hungry."

Sherlock hummed. "Think of the data, John. These are things I don't know about you. What fat reserves does your body sacrifice first? What does your breath smell like when it's tainted with ketones? How does chronic malnourishment affect your moods?" He started muttering, seemingly more to himself now than John. "I'll need a tailor's measuring tape. We should get a scale; I think Molly would let me borrow one from the morgue."

John bit his lip at the thought of being observed so closely. It made him feel warm and flushed. He cleared his throat. "And we'll stop if it becomes medically dangerous?"

Sherlock hesitated.

 _"Sherlock._ We'll stop when I say, or we're not doing this at all. Take it or leave it."

What was he getting himself into?

Sherlock huffed. "Yes, fine. You'll monitor us, and we'll stop when you say so. Happy?"

"Yes, actually," John said, pressing a kiss to Sherlock's forehead.

They were both mad, he was sure of it.

* * *

The thing was, John was right, and he wasn't. Starvation wasn't, strictly speaking, _interesting._ Not to him, anyway. On the other hand, Sherlock seemed to be having a grand time, and John was glad of it. He breathed a small sigh of relief to have found something to distract Sherlock from his destructive boredom.

Even so, nothing changed. John said yes, as he always did— _yes_ to starvation, _yes_ to Sherlock, _yes_ to fucking him into the mattress until someone got killed. They didn't make it quite that far—London seemed to be having a slow day, as crimes went—but they did make it another hour. Until he was sticky and spent, and his stomach was the loudest thing in the room, and he just had to get something for it. Sherlock watched him, head propped on the back of his chair as he filled a glass at the tap, still standing stark naked.

First one glass, then two. The water felt slick and cold as it slid down his throat, and it calmed the gnawing in his belly for a little while. He filled the glass again and offered it to Sherlock, who shook his head.

John went back to his book and finally got to finish it in peace. He looked up occasionally to find Sherlock studying him. Ordinary people would look away once caught staring, but not Sherlock. Never Sherlock. He held his gaze, let John watch him watching.

It gave John a little thrill right down to his toes, truth be told.

And Sherlock was right, he thought with a touch of annoyance as he dumped the book into the trash. He didn't like the ending at all.

* * *

They'd started their game in the middle of the afternoon on a Tuesday. By the end of the day, John was hungry, but it was nothing he couldn't ignore. He'd gone longer stretches without food in Afghanistan, and while his body wasn't still conditioned to such things, ignoring hunger pangs was a trick his mind hadn't forgotten. He fell asleep easily without a thought in his head, listening to snatches of music floating in from the hall.

The music followed him in slumber, violin chords twining around his dreams and making them stranger.

He woke to a rumbling stomach and an empty bed the next morning, which was nothing a good, strong cuppa couldn't fix. He made it without thinking, the muscle memory so deeply ingrained that he probably could have made two cups of English breakfast in his sleep. His autopilot jammed just as he was about to add sugar to Sherlock's tea, spoon poised above the steaming brew. It wasn't strictly _food,_ but calories were calories, he supposed.

John tipped the sugar from the teaspoon into the sink, tossing the spoon and forgoing milk in his own cup as well. When he set it on the table, Sherlock sipped his tea without a word, with only a slight grimace at the taste. He looked somehow looked incandescent still, despite the untouched right side of the bed that suggested he hadn't gotten a lick of sleep.

John hummed contentedly into his own cup and ran an idle finger across the back of Sherlock's hand when he reached across the table. It was a lovely morning, sun-drenched and easy.

By midday, he was well and truly miserable.

He kept himself busy by scrubbing the flat from top to bottom, but the dull gnawing in his belly had turned into a constant hollow ache that no amount of tea or water could cure. Sherlock kept _watching_ him, which—while endearing and kind of hot twenty-four hours ago—had rapidly lost its charm. The feel of Sherlock's eyes on the back of his neck made him feel itchy and irritable.

The sour mood snuck up on him so gradually that he only realized it had arrived when he caught himself snapping at Sherlock for sitting on the couch. Sitting on the couch watching him. Again.

"Do you mind?" John bit out. "Don't you have some dust to catalogue or something? Christ."

Sherlock blinked, eyelashes a slow fan against his skin. "No," he said simply, pulling his legs up onto the sofa and steepling his fingers below his chin to settle in for more of the Watching John hour.

John sighed. A biting retort was on the tip of his tongue, when the sheer inanity of the exchange caught up with him. He snorted, mostly laughing at himself and the situation. "Sorry. God, I'm hungry."

Sherlock hummed, not moving from his post. "Sitting might help."

"Sorry?"

Sherlock sighed. "Sit down." He unfurled his legs and shifted over on the couch so he was at one end of it, rather than smack in the middle. So there was room for John. "Here." He indicated the space beside him. "Your attempts to distract yourself, while admirable, are only making it worse. Burning fewer calories would help."

After a moment's hesitation, John took the invitation. He sat beside Sherlock and then, because there was no reason not to, he lowered his head into Sherlock's lap. Sherlock himself raised no objection. He lifted his arm so John could settle comfortably, then replaced it. It was a comforting weight on John's side, and after a time, Sherlock began to card his fingers through John's hair.

"How are you not miserable right now?" John asked. "My head is killing me."

Sherlock gave a shrug that John felt rather than saw. "I'm used to it."

His fingers kept stroking John's hair, and John finally relaxed into it. He sighed with pleasure and closed his eyes. It didn't make him any less hungry, but the drag of blunt fingernails against his scalp sent shivers down his spine. It was a nice counterpoint to the emptiness at his core.

* * *

He didn't remember falling asleep, but when he opened his eyes, the room was bathed in the faint blue glow of early evening. The sun had fled, and there was a heavy palm resting slightly damp against the side of his neck. John shifted to catch sight of Sherlock, who was currently dead to the world. His head was tipped back, and a faint snore emerged from parted lips.

"Human after all," John chuckled to himself. Of course he knew that, but sometimes it was easy to forget that Sherlock was as beholden to the very human needs of food and rest as anyone else. It didn't help that Sherlock did his damndest to encourage that misconception in everyone he met.

He took a moment to take stock of his body. All things considered, he felt good—excepting the crick in his neck from falling asleep like this. He felt better than he'd felt this afternoon, in any case. The hunger had subsided for the moment, leaving John feeling clean and light. He did his best to extricate himself from where he lay without disturbing Sherlock, but he was a light sleeper. His hand tightened on John's neck just slightly as John tried to dislodge it, and he found himself looking up into blue eyes.

He sat up. "Hello," he said, and his own voice sounded rough with sleep.

Sherlock blinked owlishly in the low light, and the innocent gesture made John's heart squeeze in his chest. "Hello," he rasped back.

John got up with a quick squeeze to the detective's knee. "I'll make us more tea."

It might have been a quiet night in, possibly with more cuddling on the couch that eventually turned into something heavier and darker. Whatever the potential for that particular night, it wasn't to be. Sherlock's mobile chirped, by the time John came back with the tea, he was engrossed and typing out a long response.

"Lestrade?" John asked.

Sherlock nodded once, an economical, distracted movement. It was still fascinating to John how easily all his attention could be siphoned at a moment's notice, channeled into a cause. "A disappearance in Kensington."

"A kidnapping?"

"Could be. But she disappeared from a room that was locked from the inside."

John thought for a moment. "Window?"

"Twenty-third floor."

John sipped his tea—someone ought to enjoy it, after all—then set it down beside Sherlock's untouched mug and grabbed his jacket and gun.

A cab took them toward a crime scene, and the tea cooled on the end table, forgotten.

* * *

All in all, it was one of the better cases in recent memory, John thought as they returned home through quiet streets. Sherlock had thrown his mind at it doggedly for hours before latching onto the thread that unraveled the whole spool. After that, there was a chase and a fistfight that had ended when John tackled their kidnapper into fence. He'd feel that in his shoulder tomorrow, he was sure, but for now he was running on fumes and adrenaline and nothing hurt. Far from it.

It must have been the wee hours of the morning because even the pubs they passed were closed. Neon signs and street lamps left a phosphorescent glow in the streets still wet from a recent rain. It all looked brilliant, candy-colored and surreal, and John felt clear-headed and fierce. He inhaled the crisp night air just to feel it burn his lungs clean with cold. The air smelled like ozone and sulfur, and a bit like old garbage when they passed a restaurant's bins set out for pickup.

He caught Sherlock's eye, and Sherlock grinned. The sound of his smug pleasure was so loud that John didn't have to be the world's only consulting detective to deduce it.

"Go on, say it," John said, rolling his eyes. They were both in high spirits tonight.

"Say what?" Sherlock asked, teasing.

"That this is why you do it," John replied. "This feeling. It's why it's so hard to get you to eat a goddamn piece of toast."

Sherlock grinned again but otherwise remained mute. The streets were deserted; there was no one around save the occasional passing drunk. They passed a dim alley behind what was probably a cafe during the daytime, and in a sudden fit of inspiration, John shoved Sherlock inside and crowded him against the nearest wall. Sherlock— _clever_ Sherlock—widened his stance so they were of a height, so John could better grip his hair and twist his head back, exposing a long, lean cord of tendon. He bit down, drawing a startled yelp from Sherlock that ended on a moan.

"And you say I'm a vampire," Sherlock gasped, but his fingers urged John on, pressing, holding his head in place while he left marks that were sure to be a vivid purple in the morning.

"Maybe we both are," John said pressing light kisses against Sherlock's throat that made him squirm. "Maybe we could live on nothing but each other's blood, trading it back and forth forever."

Sherlock groaned and rutted against John's thigh. "Would never work," he gasped. "Closed system. We'd—ah—run out of nutrients, wither and die. It'd buy us days. _Ah!_ Weeks at the most."

Christ, hearing about the inevitability of withering to husks before dying of malnutrition should never sound _sexy,_ but damned if Sherlock didn't turn it into the filthiest bedroom talk he'd ever heard in his life. He pressed his thigh between Sherlock's legs, partially to help him along and partially out of a desperate need for more pressure and friction himself.

"You want it, though," John murmured as he latched on again, biting not hard enough to break the skin, but hard enough to bruise. "You love the idea. The two of us in bed with a knife, taking small sips of one other, nourishing each other. Bodies remaking themselves in the other's image." He ran his tongue over Sherlock's throat, soothing the hot, sore skin there. "You love it more than the idea of starving to death with me."

Sherlock moaned again, a breathy, broken thing. John pulled away just to look at him, his flushed cheeks, lips parted as he panted. God, he was gorgeous. He was _his,_ but just now, he was also very close to the edge. John _knew_ this man, and if he didn't share all the same buttons as Sherlock, he sure as hell knew how to push them.

John tightened his grip on Sherlock's hair to the point of pain, until his soft pants melted into a whine, until he was sure he had Sherlock's attention. "Do you want to come here, shoved up against this wall in full view of London, or at home?" He asked in his ear. The pure dirt in his words was belied by the casual, conversational tone he forced into them—for Sherlock. Because he knew it drove Sherlock wild.

"Here," Sherlock gasped. "Now. Oh, god, John—"

He drew Sherlock's head down to his own neck gently, reverently. He ground his leg into the juncture of Sherlock's thighs as Sherlock bit down hard enough to draw blood, to make John see stars in pain-shaded hues of red. Sherlock bucked against his leg and came with a wet, muffled shout into his skin.

Vampires indeed.


End file.
